A crucial ability in reading comprehension may be the identification and utilization of the top-level organizational pattern of a passage provided for the reader by the author. Past research has shown a deficit in the use of organization by older adults. Little memory research with the elderly has been conducted with prose materials, but present data show a performance decrement with age. The proposed studies use a recently developed prose analysis system (Meyer, 1975) to determine if the use of the author's top-level organization or schema in prose varies across the adult life span. This prose analysis methodology has proved reliable and permits a comparison between the organization of a passage and the organization of what a reader remembers from a passage. Using this methodology the proposed research focuses on determining: (a) Are there age differences in the use of the author's top-level organization of a passage when reading and recalling a passage? (b) Are there age differences in use of signals or cues given by an author to assist a reader in identifying the author's top-level organization of the passage? (c) Are there age differences in the type of information recalled from prose? (d) Do different top-level discourse organizations facilitate recall from certain adult age groups and not others? These proposed studies with young, middle-aged, and older adults will provide valuable data for theoretical formulations of age trends in learning and memory from prose. In addition, the findings will provide a strong data base for designing training programs to improve reading comprehension in the elderly as well as providing guidelines for authors of reading materials for older adults.